Moreover, conventionally an order for goods is received by a supplier of the same and the goods for that order are picked by hand from a warehouse containing the goods and those hand picked items are packaged and sent out to the party that had requested the same.
By way of example a store may order cases of various different soft drinks for resale in their store. At the warehouse there are cases stacked one on top another and in side by side relation of one specific soft drink and in another stack, or stacks, another variety and so on dependent on the number of different varieties carried by that warehouse. When an order is received at the warehouse one or more individuals set about hand picking the cases of goods to fill the order and take them to a dispatch area. The task is labor intensive, expensive and time consuming.
There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,257,821, 6,764,266, and 6,234,737 entitled “Robotic Container Handler Systems” a rail and carriage system utilizing linear magnetic motors to controllably propel a carriage along a track consisting of a pair of parallel spaced apart rails.
The present invention is directed to improvements in the construction of the carriage, and to the rails and to a rail and carriage portion of an article handling system intended primarily for improving warehousing of goods by mechanizing handling of the goods being warehoused and/or removed from the warehouse at high speeds and extreme accuracy.
The present invention is efficient in sorting, stacking, and conveying goods in an automated high speed system capable of sorting and moving articles in a few seconds. The present invention eliminates the necessary of persons to work in close proximity to the high speed operating equipment thereby eliminating the hazards associated therewith and the strenuous physical activities associated with sorting and moving the articles and/or containers from the sorting apparatus to the distribution point.